As a component procurement specialist, I can responsibly tell you: this year’s memory market is truly outrageous, with no sign of price drops in the near term. My current spot price for W25Q128JVSIQ has already crossed 6 yuan (tax included), with a lead time of 12–16 weeks; allocation from the manufacturer is entirely based on connections. Winbond prioritizes production capacity for its large mobile phone customers, leaving smaller and mid-sized clients with increasingly limited quotas.
Regarding alternatives, our company has recently been evaluating GigaDevice’s GD25Q128. It’s about 20% cheaper than Winbond and offers a better lead time (6–8 weeks). In terms of stability, we’ve been running it in several mass-produced industrial control products for six months with no issues detected so far. That said, GigaDevice’s write speed is slightly slower than Winbond’s and the erase time is a bit longer; if your product demands high read/write speeds, you’ll need to run real-world tests.
Another domestic option is PUYA’s P25Q128H, which is even more price-competitive. However, our testing found its data retention at high temperatures to be slightly worse than Winbond’s—fine for consumer products, but exercise caution for industrial or automotive applications.
As for locking prices or stockpiling, I’d recommend that if your product has a long lifecycle and stable annual demand, you can sign an annual agreement to secure some capacity, though there will be a minimum order quantity (MOQ). Smaller companies may struggle to negotiate this.
The OP posed a great question! We’ve also been working on cost-reduction solutions recently. Here are a few points:
MCUs with large built-in Flash are indeed a viable option. The STM32U5 series offers up to 4MB of built-in Flash, which is sufficient for lightweight UIs and general data storage. However, keep in mind that built-in Flash has limited write/erase cycles (typically around 100,000). If your application requires frequent data writes, adding external storage may still be necessary.
Consider switching to domestic MCUs. Chinese brands like GD32, AT32, and MM32 offer comparable specs to ST at 30%-50% lower prices, with more options for built-in Flash capacity. For example, the GD32F450 supports up to 2MB of built-in Flash and matches the performance of the STM32F429. We switched to the GD32F407 last year, and the savings helped offset rising storage costs. Of course, the migration effort should be factored in.
SDRAM alternatives: If bandwidth demands aren’t extremely high, PSRAM (pseudo-static RAM) could be a good option. Take the AP Memory APS6404L, for instance, which offers 8-64MB capacity via SPI interface—simpler PCB routing and cheaper than SDRAM.
Regarding the broader industry trend, discussions at the Infineon wide-bandgap forum have highlighted that power density and thermal challenges are growing significantly. Taking all these factors into account, BOM pressure is indeed substantial.
I work on storage controller firmware, so I’ll share some technical details for reference.
We’ve used the GigaDevice GD25Q series extensively, and its reliability is solid within the industrial temperature range. Its instruction set is largely compatible with the W25Q, making porting very low-cost. One caveat to note: the BUSY bit definition in GD25Q’s Status Register differs slightly from W25Q. If your code uses polling to detect write completion, you’ll need to adjust the logic; otherwise, there may be false positives.
Additionally, if your product is consumer electronics and extremely cost-sensitive, Puya’s P25Q series is worth considering. The P25Q uses SONOS technology, which differs from traditional floating-gate technology and theoretically offers cost and power advantages. In our tests, its Deep Power Down current is indeed about 30% lower than Winbond’s, making it suitable for battery-powered devices. However, we haven’t conducted full accelerated aging tests on high-temperature data retention yet—if anyone has done this, please share your findings.
One small tip: if your design uses 1.8V Flash (like the W25Q128JW), consider switching to a 3.3V version. Sometimes 3.3V parts are easier to source and cheaper, though they consume slightly more power.